Eugenics and Environmentalism: From quality control to quantity control

Has eugenics faded away with time, or has the pseudo science morphed and cloaked itself under new auspices? Were some of the original founders of population control efforts themselves eugenicists? How and when did eugenicists shift from Galton era ideals to Malthusian population control? The history of eugenics is incredibly detailed and expansive, but there are certain issues that are not given as much attention as others. This article attempts to answer these questions and provide a wider perspective on these important issues.

From quality control to quantity control

While there are examples of eugenics still in practice in its pre WWII form, eugenicists were forced to scale back rhetoric and reframe their ideas in the post WWII world. Hitler’s actions embarrassed eugenicists in America enough for them to at least publicly change their ideas.

China currently has Galton-era eugenics laws on the books which only allow pre-approved couples to marry and have children. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Maternal and Infant Health Care states that if the approved couples children are deemed to be inferior they are to be terminated. [1]

The United States was the first to enact eugenic sterilization laws in the state of Indiana in 1907. By the mid 1930’s, 34 states had passed mandatory sterilization laws. Many of the laws remained active as late as 1974. Eugenics officially ended, yet remained.

Dr. David C. Reardon has documented the shift to population control among eugenicists in chapter five of his work in progress, The Eugenics Connection: Shapers of Humanity. He writes regarding the earlier eugenic practices in the United States,

"During the early 1930’s, eugenics reached the height of its popularity in pre-World war II America. It was during this period, when their political power was greatest, that eugenicists and Neo-Malthusians became increasingly radical in their demands to eliminate the ‘unfit,’ whom they called a "race of chronic paupers, a race parasitic upon the community." The eugenic weapons to be used in this ‘war between races’ were increasingly coercive and destructive. In 1932, at the Third International congress of Eugenics held in New York City, proposals were made to prevent the ‘further dilution of the American gene pool’ by those who possessed ‘inferior genes’ through segregation, sterilization, birth control, abortion and even infanticide." [2]

Reardon then documents the discrediting of eugenics and the toning down of rhetoric coming from its supporters. One of the factors cited by Reardon which dampened enthusiasm was the targeting of upper classes for sterilization due to their financial dethroning as a result of the great depression. Reardon writes,

"Suddenly, many of those in the upper and middle-classes, who had previously judged hereditary ‘unfitness’ on the basis of economic poverty, now found themselves impoverished. These ‘new poor’ feared that the selection of the ‘unfit’ might be confused. Finding themselves labeled ‘the aristocracy of the unfit’ by eugenicists, they feared that they might be the ones to suffer from compulsory sterilization, not just the "truly unfit." [3]

Frederick Henry Osborn (1889â€”1981)

James Lovelock, a prominent environmental activist, recently made headlines with his comments on what he calls imminent environmental calamity. Interestingly, Lovelock stated that the world faces an environmental crisis largely brought on by over-population in which he would like to see "the best of our species" survive. [4]

This brings us to the post WWII era of eugenics. Eugenicists who still held on to the discredited principles of eugenics now attached these ideas to environmentalism and population control in an attempt to carry on eugenics in a more veiled form. Malthusian population control was now emphasized.

The Rockefellers and the Osborns

An important point to be made when covering these issues is that the very same families who had previously funded and popularized eugenics in America prior to World War II shifted their resources into funding and promoting population reduction and control in the post WWII era.

Several prominent families are responsible for funding and promoting eugenics in America, namely the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman, and Osborn families. Two families, the Rockefellers and the Osborns, are particularly significant. John D. Rockefeller Sr. contributed a large amount of money to build the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the early 1900’s, which housed the Eugenics Records Office from 1910-1944. Rockefeller influence also spread overseas to Germany, where the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Eugenics, Anthropology and Human Heredity resided. Much of the money used to run these facilities came from Rockefeller. [5] These institutes became centers for Nazi eugenics programs during the reign of Adolf Hitler.

The influence of the Rockefeller family continued in 1945 when John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land upon which the United Nations stands in New York City. The U.N. plays an important roll in population control, a subject which will be covered shortly. Watch the video below to see former New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani introduce a short documentary regarding Rockefeller’s influence in the founding of the U.N.

In 1952, John D. Rockefeller the 3rd, the oldest son of Rockefeller Jr., founded the Population Council. The organizations stated goal is to seek "…better understanding of problems relating to population." [6] The first president of the Council was Frederick Henry Osborn, who was appointed by John D. Rockefeller himself. Osborn was a prominent eugenicist who helped found the American Eugenics Society, now called The Society for the Study of Social Biology. Osborn headed the AES from 1946-1952, when he began to place greater emphasis on population control, signaling the shift of post WWII eugenicists. [7] Osborn wrote in his 1968 book The Future of Human Heredity that "Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under another name than eugenics."

Frederick Henry Osborn’s nephew, Henry Fairfield Osborn, carried on the banner of population control. His 1948 book Our Plundered Planet covers many of the issues that environmentalists are concerned with today. Osborn states in the book that over-population will destroy the planet and that drastic measures must be taken to curtail population growth. He takes a moment to reflect on the savage nature of his outlined proposal, but states that it will have to be done. He writes,

"Of course, as we all know, these are momentous days and many things can happen to check population growth, even including the devastating use of atomic bombs in a new war. It is difficult to adjust one’s mind to the possibility that the present negotiations between nations could fail to prevent such a savage denial of the right to human existence, and that the problem of the pressure of increasing populations – perhaps the greatest problem facing humanity today – cannot be solved in a way that is consistent with humanity." [8]

Steven C. Rockefeller, a fourth generation member of the family, has remained dedicated to the family’s history of philanthropy and promotion of population control. He played a central role in the writing of the United Nations Earth Charter, and chaired the Earth Charter International Drafting Committee from 1997 to 2000. He is currently a member of the Earth Charter Commission. [9] Echoing past writings of Osborn and others, he stated in an interview at Tilburg University in the Netherlands that,

"Third, the Earth Charter recognizes that the dramatic rise in human population is putting great pressure on the resilience of ecological systems and has overburdened social and economic systems." [10]

The Earth Charter itself says, "An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous but not inevitable."

Others involved in the post WWII shift

Before we look at recent examples of population reduction being funded and carried out, there are other prominent individuals who played an important role in this shift from eugenics to population control.

Frank Notestein was one of the most prominent individuals who made the study of population an institutional practice. His bio summarizes his numerous memberships, which include the American Eugenics Society.

"He was a member of the American Eugenics Society, the American Philosophical Society, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Statistical Institute, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, the Population Association of America, and the Century Association." [11]

Notestein also served as president of John D. Rockefeller’s Population Council after Frederick Osborn stepped down. He was also the first director of the United Nations Population Division from 1946-1948. In a 1969 paper written by Notestein titled The Problem of Population Control, he outlines a strategy to depopulate target populations. Notestein admits that economic modernization would "…bring the birthrate down automatically." However, he goes on to state that more drastic measures must be taken because in his opinion this method would not be fast enough. He writes,

"Given existing preferences in family size, governments must go beyond voluntary family planning. To achieve zero rate of population growth governments will have to do more than cajole; they will have to coerce."

"…to impose more drastic changes on a large scale implies many risks, not least to the regime that undertakes them. The price for this type of population control may well be the institution of a totalitarian regime." [12]

Another individual, Guy Irving Burch, who wrote for Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review publication, also played a key role. Burch’s 1947 book Human Breeding and Survival combines the ideas of both eugenics and population control. He writes,

"It appears what the United Nations needs to do is to recommend to all nations that adoption of laws which will… actually lead to the sterilization of all persons who are inadequate, either biologically or socially, and encourage the voluntary sterilization of normal persons who have had their share of children."

Burch described plans for attaining "peace goals" and national security objectives through population control. Similar arguments and proposals are made in Henry Kissinger’s later 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200, which was influenced by the 1944 Royal Commission on Population. Burch states that, "… if we are willing to keep the focus on undesirable parentage… then sterilization can play a rather large part in the attainment of the peace goals…"

Richard C. Reardon writes again in his Eugenics Connection work in progress regarding Burch, pointing out the shift from Galton era eugenics to Malthusian population control,

"The ideas of Galton were becoming unpopular, so the ideas of Malthus needed to be stressed. If the public could be made to believe in the need for quantity control, they would again accept its logical extension – quality control. So in 1940, while serving as director of his Population Reference Bureau and the editor of its Population Bulletin, Burch helped found another "population" front for eugenicists – the Population Association of America." [13]

Population reduction operations today

In 1989 research was conducted by the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi India on the use of ‘carriers’ such as Tetanus Toxoid and Diphtheria to bypass the immune system and deliver the female hormone called human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). The research paper was carried in the Oxford University Press in 1990 and was titled "Bypass by an alternate ‘carrier’ of acquired unresponsiveness to hCG upon repeated immunization with tetanus-conjugated vaccine." [1]

While hCG is required to maintain pregnancy, the injection of hCG bound to Tetanus Toxoid triggers an auto-immune response, thus causing sterilization. The NII research cited above used four women as test subjects – who had been surgically sterilized prior to the experiment – and found that multiple doses of the Tetanus Toxoid hCG carrier vaccine was required in order to achieve the desired results. The research also found that if an alternate carrier such as Diphtheria was used as a booster in combination with Tetanus the sterilization vaccine would be more effective.

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Population Council are listed in the document as giving grants for the research.

Henry Kissinger’s 1974 National Security Memorandum 200 document cites "Injectable contraceptives for women" as a possible method of population reduction and control. Depopulation, as stated in the document, should be pursued because it would be in the "…economic interests of the United States."

"Wherever a lessening of population pressures… can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States."

On November 4, 1996 the publication Vaccine Weekly carried an article titled "Study Suggests Women Were Injected with Contaminated Tetanus Vaccine." The article details an investigation that was carried out by the Philippine Medical Association into the discovery of hCG in tetanus vaccines. While the article brands the vaccine as being "contaminated", the Rockefeller funded research cited above indicates that this is not a case of contamination. As reported,

"Have women in the Philippines, and possibly elsewhere, surreptitiously been used as guinea pigs in an international anti-fertility campaign?

A medical study in the Philippines suggested that may well be the case. A study conducted by the Philippine Medical Association on behalf of the Philippine Department of Health revealed that almost 20 percent of the tetanus vaccine sampled positive for the hormone human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), according to Human Life International.

Vaccines containing the hormone immunize women not only against tetanus but also against pregnancy by inducing the body’s immune system to attack the hormone needed to bring an unborn child to term." [2]

Thailand is ripe with stories of miscarriages and sterilization. According to the local population of the Akha, pregnant women are forced to receive a tetanus vaccine in order to get ID cards for their children. The vaccine often results with violent miscarriages. In the video below, Matthew McDaniel, a human rights activist who has been working with the Akha people of Thailand, speaks with two Akha women about the forced Tetanus vaccine and the resulting miscarriages.

The current world-wide focus on global warming takes us to another angle of present day population control operations. China has boasted that their family planning policies have cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3 billion tons, thus cutting their impact on supposed man-made global warming. [3]

China’s often brutal population control policies have been supported by the Rockefeller enterprise. The Washington Post reported on October 12, 2000 that the Rockefeller Foundation had donated two million dollars to upgrade a Chinese drug factory that produces the abortion drug RU-486. The Washington Post reports,

"RU-486 has been a key ingredient in China’s population control strategy for years. Of the estimated 10 million abortions performed annually in China, about half are carried out with RU-486, said Gao Ersheng, director of the Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research." [4]

Ted Turner recently made headlines when he stated that "voluntary" one child policies should be adopted worldwide to slow population growth. "…we`ve got to stabilize population. On a voluntary basis, everybody in the world has got to pledge to themselves that one or two children is it," stated Turner. [5]

In Australia proposals have been made to tax parents who have more than one child. As CNS news reported,

"Having babies is bad for the planet, and parents of more than two children should be charged a birth levy and annual tax to offset the "greenhouse gases" their child will be responsible for over his or her lifetime.

At the same time, those who use and prescribe contraceptives and sterilization procedures should earn tax relief for such greenhouse friendly services" that help to keep the population size down." [6]

In a 1994 presentation before the Business Council for the United Nations, David Rockefeller, son of John D. Rockefeller Jr., took time to talk about over-population as a threat to the environment. Rockefeller also said that "…unrestrained economic growth poses further threats to our environment."

Watch Rockefeller’s presentation:

What you have read here is a collection of a few of the major points in an expansive history. Population control today – and the corresponding environmental movements – grew out of the post WWII shift from eugenics to Malthusian programs. The line connecting eugenicists to population control is unmistakable. Population reduction is being used by the elite as a weapon of war against competition, as an assurance of continued domination.

Citation:

From quality control to quantity control

[1] Law of the People’s Republic of China on Maternal and Infant Health Care. http://www.women.org.cn/english/english/laws/09.htm

[2] Reardon, David C. The Eugenics Connection: Shapers of Humanity. Available in PDF here

[3] Ibid.

[4] "We’re all doomed! 40 years from global catastrophe – and there’s NOTHING we can do about it, says climate change expert" Daily Mail. By Sarah Sands. March 22, 2008. Available here.